Submerjion of Szv allows hi Autumn. 107 



putridity and corruption ; as heat and tranquillity contribute 

 to promote the Ipceuicr fblution of animal fubftances. Filh, 

 as Well as gelatinous animals, contain oily and inflammable 

 particles, with which the liberated phofphoric acid may rea- 

 dily unite and form a phofphorus on the furface of the fea, 

 and give rife to this wonderful phenomenon. 



The third kind • : light-arifesj no doubt, from living ani- 

 mals which float in the fea, .and muft be produced by their 

 peculiar organisation, or rather their component parts, which 

 deferve to be better examined by chemical experiments. 



Thefe conjectures of Dr. Forfter contain, in my opinion, 

 the mod fatisfa&ory explanation of this phenomenon. All 

 the effects of it hitherto obferved may be referred to ibme of 

 the above-mentioned caufes ; and the general eonclulion that 

 may be deduced from them is, that as thefe effects have been 

 feen under diflerent circumUanccs, they muft be explained 

 by diflerent caufes. 



I 



II. On the SubmerJIoii of Swallows in Autumn. 



N our fourth Volume, p. 414, we laid before our readers 

 an intereiting letter on this fubject from Mr. Peter Cole to 

 Dr. Mitchil! ■! New York, to which we refer. Such rela- 

 tions are often queltioned ; but in natural hiftorv, as in other 

 branches of fcience, the evidence of poiitive facts is never to 

 be controverted by mere inferences from other fuppofed or 

 real phenomena. Mr. Cole is a gentleman whole veracity 

 will not be queltioned by thofe vvho know him, and we have 

 therefore no right to doubt the truth of former relations of* 

 a fimilar nature merely beeaufe we know not now the cha- 

 racter of the rclaters. The late Hob. Daines Barrington took 

 the trouble to collect a number of teftimonies of fimilar fub- 

 merfions obferved in England, which were pubhlhed in the 

 Philofophical Tranlact ions, and we fubjoin another teftimony 

 of fuch phaenomeua being obferved in the New World. 



• •' : , : t July I oOO. 



" On the afternoon of the 24th of Auguft 1798, I was 



fitting in my parlour, which looks towards the North 



P % River, 



